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May 2025
1h 9m

195. Nuclear Physicist or Soviet Spy? Th...

Justin Black
About this episode

Today Justin talks with Dr. Frank Close. Frank is Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College at the University of Oxford. He was formerly the head of the Theoretical Physics Division at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Vice President of the British Science Association, and Head of Communications and Public Understanding at CERN. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and won their Michael Faraday Medal for Excellence in Science Communication in 2013. He received the order of the British Empire for Services to Research and the public understanding of science in 2000. He's also the author of 22 books about science. This week here's here discuss the story of Dr. Bruno Pontecorvo, a pioneer in the field of nuclear physics who worked on atomic research before, during and after World War II, and who was also a devoted communist ideologue. Bruno and his family disappeared behind the Iron Curtain in 1950, setting up a decades long mystery as to whether or not he'd been a Soviet spy all along. 

Connect with Frank:

Twitter/X: @CloseFrank

Check out the book, Half Life, here.

https://a.co/d/3u0VPsP


Connect with Spycraft 101:
Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.
spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: shop.spycraft101.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101

Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.

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